Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Boles and Richard Fuller

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

What I share with the hon. Lady is a determination to ensure that the groups she mentioned and other groups that have been discussed today have the maximum opportunity, particularly in the NHS. That is one reason why we are making great steps towards developing a new nursing apprenticeship, which will offer people a way into the profession, gaining that qualification while they are working and earning.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Alas, there is no law against selling a company to a bunch of clowns, which is a great pity for the employees and pension holders of British Home Stores. However, there is an expectation that the public should be able to look to the advisers in such a sale—the lawyers and accountants—to live up to their responsibilities and to do their duty. Will my right hon. Friend look carefully at the templates and responsibilities for advisers in transactions so that we do not see another great British company sold to a bunch of muppets?

National Living Wage

Debate between Nick Boles and Richard Fuller

Monday 18th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

If the hon. Gentleman will give me a moment, I will move on to discuss the enforcement of what I consider to be moral obligations that fall upon all employers capable of meeting them. First, let me remind him about the previous Labour Government, whom I am sure he supported. He was not in that Government—he was not yet in the House, and nor was I—but they spent only £8 million on enforcing the national minimum wage in 2009-10. At a time when they seemed able to spend unlimited amounts of money on almost everything else, they thought it rated only £8 million. We are going to spend £20 million next year, which is why the amount of arrears secured and the number of workers being helped is significantly greater now than it ever was before.

Furthermore, we have introduced the scheme of naming and shaming companies that do not pay the national minimum wage or the national living wage and do not have a good reason for explaining why. That has been an extremely effective approach. Hon. Members should see some of the letters I receive from employers trying to persuade me to exclude them from a naming and shaming round; they take it very seriously indeed, as they do not want their customers and suppliers, and indeed their neighbours, to know that they have broken the law. I do, however, agree with the hon. Gentleman that legal obligations are not enough—not for us as individuals and not for employers either. I welcomed the contribution of the hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper), who talked about her experience in employing 10 people and insisting on paying them a proper living wage because that was good for them, for her as an employer and for the business. Without being too pompous about it, let me say that that is the kind of moral responsibility we would hope and expect every employer to seek to fulfil.

I recognise the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) that some small employers will find the national living wage very difficult. I do not criticise them for an instant if they are not able immediately to ensure that every aspect of an employee’s conditions is preserved in full, because I am sure we would all agree that if the alternative is to fire some people, we would prefer to have more people being paid the legal national living wage than to have people losing their jobs. However, I am clear that for larger employers there is simply no excuse for trying to evade the effect of the national living wage by cutting other benefits and premiums.

[Richard Fuller]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Boles]

I will in a moment. First, I want to remind the House of the other measures the Government have put in place to benefit businesses, which are of substantial financial value to them.

We are cutting corporation tax from 20% to 17% in 2020, and the Chancellor announced an additional percentage point specifically to make up for the impact of the national living wage. Together, all our cuts in corporation tax since 2010 will be worth £15 billion a year to businesses. We have also introduced the employer allowance, which is now being extended from £2,000 a year to £3,000 a year. As many hon. Members mentioned, we have also expanded small business rate relief, and 600,000 small businesses will be paying no rates at all from 2017. We have taken a number of steps to ensure that businesses large and small can point to other savings that have come from the Government which they can use to fund in full the increase of the minimum wage, through the national living wage, without eroding other aspects of compensation.

Although I hope hon. Members will understand why I am not going to start naming names at the Dispatch Box, they will have observed that the work of the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden and of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise has been peculiarly effective. My right hon. Friend met one of companies that was much discussed and it has already shifted its position, and I know that other companies will do the same if the spotlight falls on them.

I wish to conclude by making this proposal to hon. Members in all parts of the House: please bring to me and my right hon. Friend any case of a company that seems to be trying to evade the spirit of the legislation in an unreasonable way. I am talking about companies that are profitable and will be benefiting from the dramatic cut in corporation tax, and companies that will be benefiting from the employer allowance or from the cut in business rates. Bring those cases to me and I promise hon. Members that we will use the full force of our office, little though it sometimes feels to be, to put pressure on those companies to live up not only to their legal obligations, which are our job to set out in making legislation in this House, but to their moral obligations, which are the ones we feel matter a great deal more.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Boles and Richard Fuller

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

No. I am simply sorry to see yet another party of opposition standing up for illegitimate strikes that cause huge disruption for people who are trying to work hard, trying to get their kids to school and trying to get to work on time. I am glad to say that the Conservatives will be standing up for working people, not trade union bosses.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Despite the Government’s excellent record on apprentices, disabled people still face significant barriers. The Alliance for Inclusive Education has raised specific concerns about the requirements for maths and English. Will my hon. Friend the Minister review those concerns and write to the alliance and me to assure us that he is taking all steps to ensure that disabled people can take advantage of apprenticeship opportunities?

Trade Union Bill

Debate between Nick Boles and Richard Fuller

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

The hon. Gentleman, with whom I have had very lively and enjoyable debates in Committee, knows that the provisions in the Bill apply under the devolution settlement throughout Great Britain and to all institutions, including those active only within Scotland.

In conclusion on these amendments, Parliament has put in place proper procedures for considering what should be reserved to Westminster and what should be devolved to other Administrations. Debates took place in this Chamber only yesterday on what should be devolved and what should be reserved to Westminster. Employment and industrial relations law is reserved.

Turning to other balloting methods proposed in amendments tabled by Opposition parties, it is vital that union members, employers and the public have the utmost confidence in ballot processes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) argued so clearly. Without that, the integrity of the whole system would be called into question; members would not use it, unions would not rely on it, and employers and the public would not trust it. That is not in anyone’s interests.

As I said in Committee, and as the Prime Minister has said, we have no objections in principle to the introduction of e-balloting. I expect that in some time—maybe in five or 10 years—the practical objections I am about to outline will have been overcome. It is simply a matter of time and human ingenuity. However, there are practical objections, and the Opposition cannot just dismiss them. The onus is on them, in proposing new forms of voting, to show that the objections can be overcome.

The Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy received evidence from the Open Rights Group, and I quoted that evidence on Second Reading. This February, Jim Killock, its executive director, gave an interview to The Guardian, in which he said of online balloting:

“This is a very hard problem to solve and so far nobody has managed it. Accountability in most software systems means a clear audit trail of who did what, which of course would violate the basic question of secrecy…You have the complexity of making sure that internet systems are secure, that the voting equipment can be trusted despite being attached to the internet, and that every voter’s machine is not being tampered with. Given the vast numbers of machines that are infected by criminally controlled malware and the temptation for someone to interfere in an election, internet voting is a bad idea.”

I am not aware that the gentleman quoted is a Conservative or that he supports the Government. [Interruption.] Instead of shouting at me, Opposition Members should reflect on the objections raised and work with us to try to overcome them. We are absolutely open to discussing these practical objections, and to working with the Opposition parties and anyone else in society to overcome them.

[Richard Fuller]

My hon. Friend has spoken about problems with processes, but we are talking about some of the most venerable institutions in our country: trade unions. At this early stage of the Parliament, with five years of important discussions to have with trade unions across the country on wages, terms and conditions, productivity and efficiencies, does he want to say to trade union leaders that the Government do not trust them to run a ballot?

[Nick Boles]

I want to say to trade union leaders that when they can overcome the objections listed not by me, but by experts from groups such as the Open Rights Group, the Government will be happy to work with them to implement new forms of balloting. Until then, however, we remain to be persuaded.

My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon is right that there is no requirement for primary legislation to introduce new forms of balloting. It can be done under powers in section 54 of the Employment Relations Act 2004. On that basis, I urge the House to reject the amendments.

EU Merger Control

Debate between Nick Boles and Richard Fuller

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 General Committees

[Nick Boles]

Those are two excellent questions. On the first, I remind the hon. Gentleman that the Government’s response to the White Paper specifically suggested that the priority should be to ensure that all EU member states should have, as we do already, a domestic regime for the review and, if necessary, control of the acquisition of minority shareholdings. If they did, we could be satisfied that issues relating to the putative purchase of one German airline by another would be covered. Although the hon. Gentleman is of course right to say that consumers in the broader EU might be affected by such a transaction, they are unlikely to be affected more than consumers in the market in which those two companies have their operational bases. I believe that Germany does have a national regime on minority shareholdings, but many other states do not. If such a regime is present, it should be capable of reflecting the interests of consumers from across Europe.

On the second point, the hon. Gentleman is right that tax dodging can be a driving force behind acquisitions, but it is not specifically about competition. Ensuring that the taxes due are received is an important issue of public interest, but it is not for the competition regime, which is about protecting consumers’ interests, to be the adjudicator in such a situation. I am unable to explain the detail to him, but many discussions are taking place at all sorts of levels about the problem of shifting profits around the world. Indeed, the Chancellor has made some fairly robust proposals about how that can be discouraged in the UK.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hanson. I have never taken part in a European scrutiny process, so this may be a naive question from me. Will the Minister confirm whether the proposals amount to everything in the EU’s 10-year review of merger policy? Is this the output from that review, or is it just the contentious piece? Is the purpose of the 10-year review that this will then lay the groundwork for the next 10 years?

[Nick Boles]

My understanding is that the White Paper reflects the sum total of the proposals that the Commission wanted to make following the review. It is worth acknowledging that there was a loose throwaway line at the end of the White Paper that seemed to suggest that, in the perfect future envisaged in Brussels, the EU would control everything, but the White Paper contained no such specific proposal. We have responded to all the proposals, as I have outlined. This is not in the Commission’s work plan for the current year, so we do not anticipate early action to take any of the proposals forward. There is certainly no indication of the Commission coming forward with other broader, more far-reaching proposals.

[Richard Fuller]

I thank the Minister for that. On the understanding that the proposals are it and that they look forward for the next 10 years and not wanting to drag the Minister too far into hypotheticals, will he confirm that the rules on mergers apply to the single market and not to the eurozone? We are likely to see a substantial change in the eurozone over the next 10 years with much more consolidation and co-ordination of fiscal policies. The concern with the merger policy is the emergence of a North American Free Trade Agreement-type arrangement in which we end up being Canada, but all the decision-making rules on mergers are produced by one set of countries that have much more common fiscal and economic frameworks. Will the Minister comment on this set of policies and the broader set of merger policies from the review in the light of those likely changes over the next 10 years?

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Boles]

I am going to resist the urge to speculate in an area in which I can claim little expertise. I simply point out to my hon. Friend that this country retains strong laws and, more importantly, strong institutions that will continue to act under the policies and guidance set out by the UK Parliament. I do not anticipate anything that might happen in the eurozone undermining our own regime. The EU regime applies to the single market. As my hon. Friend will be aware, our right hon. Friend the Chancellor is very busy today seeking to secure guarantees that the single market will not be shanghaied by the eurozone for its own purposes and that there will be protections for those of us who are enthusiastic participants in the single market but will never be members of the eurozone. I am sure that that would include any attempt—not that we have any indication that there will be one—to dilute the regime or overburden it for the sake of eurozone members. We would resist such an attempt very strongly, but we have no sense that that is on the agenda.

[Richard Fuller]

My final question relates to trade treaties, particularly the transatlantic trade treaty, which will create a broader market in which there will be free and open competition. What is the likely impact of the application of this measure to a treaty with the United States and other countries? Has the United States been part of the consideration of this measure or of the overall merger policy in the European Union?

[Nick Boles]

I will not even venture to give an answer off the hoof, because that is not a subject considered in the White Paper, but I am happy to write to my hon. Friend and copy in members of the Committee on that question.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That the Committee takes note of European Union Document No 11976/14, a Commission White Paper: Towards more effective EU merger control, and Addenda 1 to 3; and supports the Government’s approach of questioning the proposal to widen scope of the EU Merger Regime (EUMR) to include acquisitions of non-controlling minority shareholdings, given that the evidence does not suggest it is justified.—(Nick Boles.)